Drawing development at Blue Monkey Shared Space residency

Blue Monkey shared space residency at Eastbourne College, led me from ash and brush work via bare feet and a huge mess to in-line skate drawings 

Shared space residency with Blue Monkey network

I'm in this big big space made up of three spaces connected - there is light and silence. Energy and fear. Blue Monkey shared space residency is at Casson Art School studios, Eastbourne College for two weeks. There are 5 artists working alongside me Angela Smith, Juidth Alder, Sharon Haward, Pat Thornton and Claire Shoosmith.

It's day 3 and my emotions have ranged from arriving in total exhaustion on the first day to a frenzy of energy and excitement - taking risks and feeling at home producing large scale work. There is fear of course that helps keep it turning over. 

I am going through ideas I have been playing out in my mind for a long time now which need a larger environment these include 3 series: contact drawings, ash lines and alteration drawings 

I started with cutting up ash line trace drawings with Roni Horn in the back of my mind, I like her pigment drawings which she cuts up and pieces together meticulously. I am experimenting with the trace drawings to see if they will go any further. 

The first intervention drawing 

I placed paper around the studios and taped it down in order to get going, I made a black pigment brush drawing and then 'shot' the pigment off the edge the result was a lovely trace line of pigment which resonated with the intervention above

The second day was pushing beyond and taking risks I took my socks off and stepped onto the big ash circle trying ballet steps around the paper getting pigment, ash and charcoal all over me and the floor the result was a huge liberating mess! After mopping up I re painted it with gesso.

...and then I put on the rollerblades. Wanting to make contact drawings where the body and weight make marks that are ambitious roller blading across the paper through and over ash was the idea. 

Once I had gained a bit of steadiness by rolling around the studio several times much to the amusement of my fellow artists I started an inline drawing rolling back and forth whilst videoing it holding my phone. It was lots of fun and just what experimental art should be. 

These works are very much a continuation of my interest in the landscape and its inherent materials. Working in Eastbourne very close to the South Downs has a strong relationship with these materials. 

Ash line and trace drawing

https://vimeo.com/98232345

reaching into wide open spaces

 

I did this piece 6 years ago one of a series of about 20 collages. It has remained with me as a link to something else all this time but I've not had an idea of what really it could become, many thoughts have come and gone, many crazy ideas of huge canvases filling a beautiful gallery space.

I now know through experience and practise that if I keep on drawing then something will come, as long as I am prepared to follow hunches and jump into opportunities that come up whether they are just choosing different materials to use or visiting a particular show or reading a book I hear about on the radio - all this contributes to a slow emergence of what is really a continuation of an idea that was first realised years ago (even this idea came out of something so its not the start of something but also a continuation ...and it goes on!).

I actually need these works/ideas as anchors in my practise because they give it foundation, reference and authenticity because they grow with me over time, they re-appear in different guises but remain traceable and detectable if you are interested in uncovering them.

In 2014 I now find myself drawing and specifically exploring line and curve. my current statement says 'I am primarily concerned with drawing.  A strong sense of movement, physicality and contrast are key elements as are line and curve' I have arrived here without deliberately making this connection to an early significant piece of work and I love that. Creativity happens regardless of me trying or not trying, so long as I regularly work to allow it to happen.





That's the simple bit: living it is the complicated bit because I must keep working in a state of uncertainty and vulnerability. I don't know how a piece of work is going to turn out and even if or when I do I have no idea of what will come next unless I keep working, trusting and acting on ideas and instincts. This can make working towards an exhibition a risky and really quite stressful business - the tension of what it will look like and how it will curate as a body of work when that body is not yet complete. I have to 'lean' into the unknown and believe in myself.
This is where my anchors help give me firm roots deep into solid ground from there I can stretch and reach beyond myself with my self imposed limits. Reaching into wide open spaces. I would go as far as to say this is my faith.

ash lines

stepping stones

Its hard to articulate why I make work; I do it instinctively - so there's something in the FEEL of doing it. I think while I am preparing the surface, in recent pieces that's painting board,with gesso (or even a step before that, mixing gesso from chalk powder). Then sanding it back looking and feeling for a lead into how the piece is going to progress all the time semi-concious of recent drawing trips and body memory of repeated drawings and movements, I develop a relationship with the surface. 

This also feeds directly into performance/movement drawing - feeling a rhythm and being aware or knowing what will come next by letting the body move only in the moment. Some decisions are concious and these are fed by accumulated knowledge or preference.

I leave a space for interpretation; I make a suggestion - I can't say exactly what the images are as they are an amalgamation of choices and influences throughout the process of building up marks. Influences such as music, mood, location, experience, temperature, a line that repeats, a curve that fits.

So I paint then sand back. The surface and I are now familiar with each other - we have built a relationship. Sometimes the surface dictates a line and I follow its lead, or I make the first move and the surface responds. what follows is the struggle which concerns the image coming forth the desire to control and restrict it. This tension is what makes work sing. 

To manage this dialogue I work on 2 or 3 pieces at a time, allowing unworkable elements to co-exist with more successful ones I like the sense of progression there is always something to move from and onto; like stepping stones I leap across one to the other.